Can a one-size-fits-all, low-price, consumer-dominated sales model support a diverse, innovative, challenging literary output?It is either an existential threat to intellectual freedom or a rustbelt media industry meeting its comeuppance at the hands of disruptive technology. The battle between the multibillion-dollar publisher Hachette (and now the Scandinavian publisher Bonnier) and the even more multibillion-dollar Amazon is usually discussed in high-minded tones, particularly by publishers and their authors. But at heart, it is merely another collision between producers and consumers that has a particular significance only if you ascribe a value to books as cultural artefacts. It is perfectly possible, instead of Hachette and Amazon, and the 900 writers who took out a two-page ad in the New York Times to protest, to substitute supermarkets, dairy farmers and the price of milk.Although books account for only 7% of the sales of the Everything store, Amazon sells a lot of them. In particular it has 60% of the ebook market. It believes a flat-rate sales price for new books and bestsellers delivers higher sales and bigger profits. Hachette disagrees. Amazon is forcing the issue by disadvantaging Hachette books (no buy button, no discounts and so on). Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2014-08-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Photo by Miria-Sabina Maciągiewicz. As Emerson said to Whitman: “I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start.” The same words my editor said to me when I published my first novel in—good God—1982! Although I have to... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-05-10 08:56:38 UTC ]
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The inaugural Amazon Book Sale will run May 15–20 and feature deep discounts on thousands of books, including 50% off print bestsellers. The e-retailer is touting the event as "The Book Sale of Your Dreams." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-05-09 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Gathering together writers and translators who withdrew from PEN America's Literary Awards and World Voices Festival, the event, held in New York City on May 7, featured stirring readings, offered sharp critiques, and raised money for the Gaza-based nonprofit We Are Not Numbers. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-05-08 04:00:00 UTC ]
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The key changes announced emphasize greater international dexterity for Hachette under David Shelley's transatlantic leadership. The post Hachette in the UK and USA: International Management appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2024-05-07 22:04:31 UTC ]
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Amazon’s entry-level 16GB Kindle is on sale for $80, which is a discount of 20 percent. This is the latest iteration of the standard ereader, dating back to 2022. Amazon doesn’t do too many Kindle hardware updates, so we don’t know if this sale precludes a forthcoming refresh. The sale covers... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-05-06 17:12:07 UTC ]
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Oftentimes, a reader asks what it’s like to publish a memoir with family members in it. How do you seek permission? What do you do when someone in your family protests your storytelling? Do you write it anyway? In this transmission, the radio delivers the questions as something else: Where is... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-05-06 08:53:35 UTC ]
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'Blood at the Root,' LaDarrion Williams' first novel in a three-book deal — a series that centers on a Black boy in a YA fantasy saga — is the kind of fiction he wishes existed when he was a kid. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-05-03 10:00:51 UTC ]
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A new concerted effort, opened during Bologna Children's Book Fair by the Montreuil Children’s Book Fair, has 15 publishing event producers. The post Frankfurt Joins European Network for Youth Reading Events and Festivals appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2024-05-03 01:02:49 UTC ]
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Driven by its cloud computing unit, sales and earnings at Amazon posted big first-quarter gains this year. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-05-01 04:00:00 UTC ]
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May's most interesting new releases, Independent Bookstore Day round-up, and more bookish news. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-04-29 16:15:52 UTC ]
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The American Booksellers Association has filed a motion with the Federal Trade Commission seeking to fix a hole in the FTC’s antitrust complaint against Amazon that many in the industry agree needs correcting: that it did not specifically include what Amazon’s practices have done to book... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-04-29 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Readers share their tips on discovering new authors and reading more widelyIn addition to the excellent advice provided in your article on reading (The experts: librarians on 20 easy, enjoyable ways to read more brilliant books, 25 April), I would add the following. The old adage of not judging... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-04-28 16:39:44 UTC ]
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Mayor Eric Adams announced a revised $111.6 billion budget plan on Wednesday that avoids new spending cuts and increases estimates of the city’s tax haul, reflecting his administration’s increasingly sunny view of New York’s finances. But the proposal rebuffs the City Council’s request to undo... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2024-04-24 16:53:57 UTC ]
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It’s 2015. My partner and I are in Moab, Utah, for the summer, far from our home of Philadelphia. He is doing research for his dissertation. I am struggling to rewrite a novel that my editor says—and I agree—isn’t working. The desert landscape in southwest Utah is magnificent and to us wholly... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-04-19 08:53:24 UTC ]
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The heads of the IBPA, IPC, and PubWest share insights on the challenges and opportunities for independent publishing. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-04-19 04:00:00 UTC ]
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In September, poet Joan Wickersham’s No Ship Sets Out To Be A Shipwreck will be published by Eastover Press. Lit Hub got a sneak peak, and we’re excited to share a new poem from the collection. According to the publisher, No Ship Sets Out To Be A Shipwreck is a poetic and philosophical... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-04-15 13:30:20 UTC ]
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When I was a child, my grandfather was embroiled in a quiet, and possibly entirely one-sided, feud with his next-door neighbor. Every summer I would visit my grandparents for a week, and follow Grandpa on his morning walks through the woodlot, along a path that skirted the neighbor’s field. Each... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-04-10 08:54:38 UTC ]
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The Australian author is ‘incredibly influential’, but has had to survive decades of ‘cultural cringe’ and genre snobbery to make finally ‘a decent sort of living’Before parched and dusty towns across Australia became full of fictional sinister people; before the explosion of outback noir and... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-04-05 23:00:18 UTC ]
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